


ashes in your mouth

by NikoArtagnan



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, POV Second Person, headcanons abound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5840815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikoArtagnan/pseuds/NikoArtagnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It is junior high when you meet Chris.</i>
</p><p>  <i>Well, rather, Chris and Josh, because the two of them have been all but attached at the hip since they were kids. </i></p><p> </p><p>Ashley and Josh through the years, and a rather strange sort of friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ashes in your mouth

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for rad-news-barrett on Tumblr, for the Until Dawn Secret Santa (Take 2!) This was loads of fun, and I really hope people like it.

It is junior high when you meet Chris.

Well, rather, Chris _and_ Josh, because the two of them have been all but attached at the hip since they were kids.

You know your mother would rather you make friends with Josh, because _Josh Washington_ , son of the famous _Bob Washington_ looks better than making friends with the son of a single mother, no matter how successful that single mother is.

You _like_ Chris, though. He’s funny, and smart, and _sweet_ , and is about as big a nerd as you are.

But Chris comes with Josh, and you – slowly - make a sort of friendship with him too.

* * *

It helps, of course, that you’re a lot less willing to put up with his particular brand of bullshit than most other people are.

Josh _swans_ around, prickly and bristling and always watching how people react to his cruel jokes, and even though Chris rarely gets the sharp edge of his temper, Josh can be cruel to him too.

You put up with it, like you have always put up with your own Mother’s little snipes about your hair, you clothes, _why can’t you make some real friends, Ashley, and stop playing all those video games_? It keeps the peace, and he’s no ruder to you than he is to a lot of other people, but then one day you can’t take it anymore.

He says something to Chris while the three of you are studying, a little jab hidden in a compliment, the ones he gives out with too intense eyes, waiting for something you don’t understand. He says something about how Chris gets around girls, clumsy and slow but charming, _naturally_ , _isn’t that right, bro_ , and you can feel the way Chris all but _deflates_ beside you, and you wonder why Josh seems so _determined_ to make Chris angry.

“Well, at the very least Chris doesn’t need to over compensate to impress the ladies.” The words are out before you can stop them – _temper, temper Ashley, you’re too much your Grandfather’s_ _blood_ \- and Josh’s eyes snap to yours.

You smile at him.

“Fierce little kitten, aren’t you?” Josh asks, sounding almost amused.

Your grin sharpens at the edges. “No. I just have a low tolerance for bullshit.”

“Guys,” Chris says, not sure of what’s going on, but uncomfortable in the rising tension permeating the air.

You turn to Chris instead of continuing to watch Josh, and your smile is real this time. Chris blushes and there is something very warm in your chest at the sight of the color on his cheeks.

Josh lets out a bark of laughter after a moment, and pelts Chris in the head with an eraser, and the tension eases.

But his eyes are wary and appreciative in equal turns when you catch them watching you, and, strangely enough, almost _thankful_.

* * *

Josh begins to throws barbs your way, tiny little hooks curled in the words he gives with a smiling mouth, blatant insults hidden in twisting compliments. You smile, and send them right back, words just as poisonous as the ones he slips to you.

It bleeds the poison out of both of you.

You have plenty of it, bitter bile you’d never even began to conceive was in you, and you breathe when bits of it break away from you.

Josh looks easier, a bit more willing to _smile_ after the two of you go at it, and not for the first time you wonder just why a boy who seems to have it all would have so much poison in him.

You don’t ask, however, and no one tells you.

It is, after all, not your place.

* * *

There are times when Josh just…disappears, and the panic throttles you.

No one tells you anything, but now it isn’t a matter of _knowing your place_ , as your mother might say, but it is a matter of Hannah with bags under her eyes and Beth snapping at everything that moves and Chris who checks his phone every five minutes.

You aren’t an idiot. You’ve heard the rumors, the sly, _ugly_ things whispered in corners, where Beth and her lightning fists can’t find the speakers.

And you’ve seen the truth of it in Josh’s own eyes, haven’t you?

Your mother says as much to you when you come home, an ugly little comment about _the Washington’s psycho son was admitted to an asylum_ , with that damned ugly smile on her face, spewing ugly gossip with her greedy fingers, and you-

You _scream_ at her. You _scream_ until tears run down your cheeks because _Josh is my_ friend _, god damn it, and why are you such a selfish bitch?_

She tells you that you’re a fool, and this family doesn’t need to be associated with any _more_ psychos, not after what happened with _that sister of mine, may she rot, batshit insane disgrace_ , and you hate this woman more than you have ever hated anything, you think.

The walls shake under your voices as the two of you scream at each other, and when you finally escape to your room, you slam the door so hard something breaks.

* * *

Josh comes back.

And the relief is almost as strong as the panic once was.

But you don’t say a thing.

…Though, maybe you _do_ sit a little closer to him than you should when all of your friends meet up. Maybe your jokes are a little less harsh than they would be normally. Maybe your eyes track where he is at all times.

(Chris and Sam are doing the same thing, in their own ways.)

* * *

Time passes.

Time passes and goes on. You and Chris smile and flirt and straddle the line between friends and _“oh god, oh god, is he_ flirting _with me?”,_ and you and Josh snip at each other and tease Chris.

There are other people in your lives, too, all interconnecting, and you have many friends now.

There is Sam, a childhood friend, the rock climbing athlete whose eyes go soft around Hannah, Josh’s shy sister who has never once looked in Sam’s direction. There is Beth, who is stubborn, brash, and _loyal_ and loves her sister with everything she has. There is Emily, glittering with pride and an impeccable fashion sense you wish you knew how to find for your own. There is Jessica, beautiful, smiling, whose smile turns down at the edges when she looks at football star Matt, whose own lips turn up at the sight of her.

(There is Mike, too, but you do _not_ like him, with his roving eyes and insincere smiles for a besotted Hannah.)

But you have grown used to the feeling of having people call your name with joy and mean it. You have grown used to petty fights and days spent over books, drinks, at a restaurant, the arcade, the beach, a hundred other places. You have grown used to houses being open for you, and no eyes judging you for the things your mother insinuates in her ever reaching grasp for _more, more, more_.

You have friends, and it is…

It is good.

* * *

Graduation comes.

Josh invites you all to the lodge, and you leap at the chance to celebrate _finally_ getting away from your mother, to celebrate going to college with all of your friends around you.

You are so excited, and you think – _hope_ , maybe – Chris might…well…

…In any case, you can’t wait for the day to come.

* * *

You tell yourself that Sam can comfort Hannah after Mike plays this stupid prank on her. It’s a _perfect_ scenario, straight out a romance novel (or smutty fanfic, if you want to be honest with yourself), and you can’t wait to see it come to life.

You don’t let Matt film it, because that’s just cruel. That’s just _stupid_.

(Jessica does, and you can’t convince her otherwise. Well, you can always destroy the film afterward.)

The smile shared between her and Emily and the others is _cruel_ , and you feel uncomfortable, looking at these expressions of glee that wouldn’t have looked out of place on your own mother’s face.

And then Hannah comes.

* * *

Hannah disappears into the night, and Beth right behind her.

You feel a sort of dawning horror you desperately try to comfort with the knowledge that they’ll come back soon.

* * *

They don’t.

* * *

They never come back.

* * *

_You have two lives on your hands,_ something that sounds like your mother whispers in your head. _How does that feel? Murderer. Murderer._

I’m not, you want to say.

But in your head you see the destroyed expression on Hannah’s face. You see the rage on Beth’s as she demands an explanation. You hear the trembling in Sam’s voice as she tells Josh his sisters are gone. And you see the disbelief on Josh’s face.

You don’t think you’ll ever forget it.

* * *

There are ashes in your mouth these days. Ashes in your lungs.

You grieve for those you have no right to grieve for.

* * *

You come back. You come back for Josh, and for Sam, for Chris, and for the memories that haunt your every dream.

You come back because you need to do _something_.

* * *

Then there is the lodge, new tensions between you all that had never been there before. You want to throw something at Mike’s head when he and Jessica appear attached at the hip, and just about roll your eyes to the heavens when Emily and Matt appear the same way, even though Matt’s eyes linger on Jessica just a second too long.

Sam is colder to you than she’s never been, and you remember the way Sam’s eyes lit whenever Hannah smiled.

The taste of ashes in your mouth grows stronger, and it’s a taste not even a blushing, clumsy Chris and a perfectly amiable Josh can alleviate.

But everything seems to be okay.

Until it isn’t.

* * *

Josh is whimpering, and you can’t see for the tears, and that _damned_ _voice_ is ringing in your ears.

_Choose._

You don’t want to die. You don’t want to die, and you don’t want to make Chris choose between you and Josh, _but he has to_ , and the panic is choking you, and Josh is sobbing, his words cracking like ice as he begs.

Chris chooses.

He chooses you.

The saw blade continues down the path, and Josh is screaming, and you can’t believe this, oh God, oh no, Josh, _no_ -

Josh _screams_ , and the sound is _seared_ into your mind, will always be seared into your head, like Hannah’s teary eyes, and the hate on Beth’s face, and then there is the most awful sound in the world, and then there is _liquid_ splattering your face.

Josh’s anguished screams, Chris’s sobs, and your own crying mix into a frenzied cacophony with the whirring noise of the sawblade’s engine, and the sickly wet sounds of blades cutting through meat, and then Josh falls silent.

The sawblade stops.

The door opens.

Chris pulls you down, and you open your eyes even when he tells you not to, and oh god, _Josh_ – there’s blood, blood _everywhere_ , and things _dripping_ , his body _severed in two_ , and your gorge rises.

When you are out in the cold mountain air, you vomit helplessly, tasting the ashes in your mouth that are ever stronger.

* * *

_It’s like your first date_ , you think hysterically, as Chris points the gun at his own head and pulls the trigger with a smile on his lips that’s all for you.

There is an explosion that drowns out your wailing scream – _CHRIS!_ \- and the lights go black.

* * *

Josh’s eyes are broken, is all you can think, beyond the humiliation strangling your tongue into silence. He laughs, but there’s no joy in it.

He says he didn’t kill Jessica, but how can you believe him, after what he has just done, after what he had planned for months-

_All those emotions that my sisters got to feel once one year ago! Only guess what? They didn't get to laugh it off! No! Nope! No no no! They're gone!_

The words fade in your mind as Josh’s words stab like knives.

And the ashes are bitter.

* * *

Then there are _wendigos_ and death and Emily’s hand cracking across your face in fury – _but you’d just been_ scared _and you were so, so, so sorry_.

(It’s a bitter bit of happiness, when you finally get your kiss with Chris.)

Later, you pull him back in the house, and you see a horror straight from your worst nightmares leaping at the door. The two of you run for your lives.

It seems like you’ve been doing a lot of that, recently.

* * *

You survive. You survive the prank, the wendigos, the fire, the mountain’s curse. You survive it.

 _All_ of you do, even Matt and Jessica, bloody and bruised and almost broken. You all made it out alive.

Except.

 _Josh didn’t make it,_ Mike says, and you can almost see the shame on his face. _The thing got him._

The ashes choke you every night.

And you think you can hear Beth’s voice in your head. Or maybe it’s Hannah’s.

* * *

Hannah had been down there for _thirty days_. It’s only been a week for Josh.

 _If_ he’s still down there. _If_ he’s still alive. _If_ the thing didn’t kill him. If, if, if.

But then you remember Mike, and the shift in his gaze, and you think, _maybe_.

Just _maybe_.

* * *

It’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

But you call in favors, get money, and you blackmail your mother. Among other things, each more stupid than the last. You never tell your friends.

The native tribes who live around the base of the mountain - the ones who tried to stop Bob Washington from coming to the mountain in the first place, and that knowledge eats you alive on the inside, _it could have all been avoided_ \- among their people you find guides. Hunters.

Men and women alike join you, all of whom you convince, pay, and/or plead with to help you. You find people who were blocked from trying to find Hannah and Beth all those years ago by rangers who thought they knew better.

Two weeks.

The night before, you write a will, and send it to your aunt’s best friend. For safekeeping.

Just in case.

* * *

Josh is cold in your arms as you ride down the lift to the base of the mountain with the others in your group.

He is cold and shaking and _terrified_ (much like you are), but he is _alive_ , blessedly _alive_ , and tears fill your eyes.

 _Why?_ He asks in a cracking voice, his head resting on your shoulder, a gesture of comfort among friends he has never allowed himself before. His voice is aching. _Ashley, why?_

His hand is cold in yours.

 _I had to_ , you say, your voice trembling. _I had to._

It’s all you can say.

After all, he wouldn’t understand ashes in your throat, the angered voices of people long dead, and the feeling of blood staining your hands.

But then his fingers twitch and then curl around yours, warmth seeping into his ice-cold skin.

And you think that maybe he might.

* * *

These days, there are no more ashes in your mouth.


End file.
